


someday I'll love what I can't find in you

by cicak



Series: Coronavirus Decameron (WIP Amnesty 2020) [4]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: 5 Things, Character Study, F/M, Falling In Love, Smut, character study through smut, its full of secrets, that's why ash tyler's season 2 beard is so big
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-02-23 06:29:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23673808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cicak/pseuds/cicak
Summary: When Michael first came onto the Shenzhou, the frankness of the humans shocked her, the way they talked about love in such casual ways, while also speaking of love as if it was the core driving force of the universe.Five ruminations on love.
Relationships: Michael Burnham/Ash Tyler | Voq, Michael Burnham/OMC
Series: Coronavirus Decameron (WIP Amnesty 2020) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666177
Comments: 22
Kudos: 39





	someday I'll love what I can't find in you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strangeallure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeallure/gifts).



_one._

Amanda had prepared her for life aboard the Shenzhou as only a mother could, by embarrassing her deeply.

They went out for tea at one of Amanda’s favourite spots for what she called ‘people-watching’, the day before Michael was due to leave, and they shared a pot of the bright, lemony tea that they both preferred.

“Now, Michael,” Amanda had said, impish delight spread over her face, “I think it's about the right time now that I give you _the talk_.”

When Michael was thirteen, Sarek had decided that his fatherly duty was to prepare her for the role of a Vulcan woman, but when he described sex as ‘sexual congress’ the first time she’d laughed so hard she’d ended up with hiccups. It was the first time she’d heard him talk about any form of carnality, any acknowledgement that sex was something Vulcans even did, despite his children and his beautiful wife.

This was back when Michael had still had a streak of human cheekiness left within her, before she got stark and Vulcan under the pressure of going through such a public, awful puberty compared to her friends at school, who merely seemed to glide up a few inches per month, who grew up like trailing vines compared to Michael’s own weed-like development.

She’d have died of embarrassment a thousand times without Amanda and her own streaks of humanity, who had come in to the study when she heard Michael’s peals of laughter, and when Sarek explained, laughed herself, told her husband to go away, and then explained it to Michael herself, frankly and without artifice.

Now Michael is twenty three, and Amanda is opening her handbag and presenting Michael with a carefully wrapped package, which she gestured for Michael to open with a flick of her delicate wrist. Inside was a book with a discreet, pretty, patterned cover and no listed title, and a small box. Michael opened the box and gave it a shake, until a package of old-fashioned prophylactics fell noisily onto her plate.

“Oh no…” Michael said quietly.

“Now, darling, don’t look like that. I did the same to Spock when he went to camp, and I’ll do the same when he goes to the academy. I take no glee from this”, even though Michael could see the glee on her face right in front of her, and gave her the stare that Amanda, seasoned professional at raising teenagers by this point, blithely ignored. “Human society isn’t like Vulcan, and you aren’t like them. There will always be people who look at naivety and instead of wanting to protect you, will want to take advantage of it. My mother gave me condoms before I went off to university, as did her mother, and her mother before her.”

“Why now?” Michael said. “I did four years at the science academy. Logically, that would have been the correct time.”

Amanda took her hand, and squeezed it. “I didn’t think you were ready, and I trusted you then, that if you were going to be sexually active, you would talk to me well before it happened. That and...I know Vulcan boys.”

Amanda was right; no one had propositioned Michael at the academy at all, and she’d never thought about it, about whether she’d wanted any of them to.

“I’m not naive,” Michael protested, her hands twisting around the crinkly wrapping, feeling the circular ring within, somehow obscene in its slipperiness, the noise it made seemingly designed to be as attention grabbing as possible. “I would of course talk to you before...you’ve talked to me often about reproduction, about cultural expectations on Earth compared to Vulcan. I believe I know the theory and enough of the practice to...be able to cope.”

“No,” Amanda says, “you aren’t naive, you are wiser than your years, which is equally as terrifying to a parent. You have grown up a stranger in a strange land, a curiosity, and just as I hoped you would finally be accepted and begin the adult life I thought I was preparing you for, you are heading out to start that again, and this time I won’t be able to hold your hand when you get scared. I have disagreed with my husband many times over your upbringing, something I chose for myself and my son, but that we forced upon you. This time I agree with him. You should go be among other humans and learn what it is to be human. Learn how to make a mistake without your entire race being blamed.”

She smiles. “Go have some fun, Michael. You’ve got a good heart and a careful soul, both should serve you well.”

Ultimately, the prophylactics were unnecessary. The CMO of the Shenzhou gave her a medical almost shockingly lax compared to the hoops she always had to jump through before getting even an analgesic back on Vulcan, and declared her to be in almost offensively good health. It was her first experience of being normal, and she was surprised to realise how relieved she felt. She got up to leave, nodding, feeling something uncurl in her breast, but he looked at her sharply and declared that they weren’t done, and then, slowly, agonisingly and in extreme detail, took her through her contraception options.

She went with the quarterly hypo. The doctor gave her the first dose there and then, and twelve weeks later, another materialised alongside the normal vitamin and supplement hypo that all humans take when on long-term space assignment. Easy, quick and clean.

She lost the condoms somewhere, maybe she’d never packed them, but somehow being among humans woke something up in her brain. She had always had feelings, touched herself as much as was normal, but it was just puberty, just normal maturation of the brain, but now, among all these human men, young men with wide shoulders and slim hips and regulation sideburns in perfect points, she felt like maybe it wouldn’t be enough, anymore, to just touch herself under the cover of darkness.

The first person she had sex with was also called Michael. Michael liked to work out early in ships-morning, when the gym was quiet enough for her to focus on her breathing. Most mornings, she got the place to herself, and she could take her time, work through some kata without someone asking any curious, friendly questions about how it worked, whether she could teach them. That fateful morning, between the witching hour and the night shift, there was one other person in the gym, a security lieutenant, and she watched him in the mirrors for an hour as he hefted heavy things into the air, his eyes following her as she stretched and began her first sequence. She stood in the middle of the room, and she felt him circle her as he switched from each piece of equipment, not saying a word, just both of them mutually appreciating each other as they worked up a sweat. His skin glistened as he hip-thrusted and she admired the way the muscles moved as he whipped the exercise ropes around like conjuring waves on a lake.

He introduced himself, and they laughed at the coincidence, then asked if she would like to spar with him. A little mixed martial arts at 0300 ships time. They pushed the equipment to the side, threw down some crash mats, and she beat him three sets to two.

When she pinned him for the third time, he kissed her, and twenty minutes later, she wasn’t a virgin anymore, and it was all very pleasurable and satisfactory.

That's done, Michael thought, with a sense of vague achievement, before heading back to her quarters for a shower.

She got promoted quickly, and while she and the other Michael occasionally saw each other in the gym or the mess, they never did much more than nod at each other.

_two._

Back when Michael Burnham was Commander Burnham, someone else, the fact that she had reached the age of thirty without being in love might not have seemed like such a big deal. She was a commander, second in command of a starship, a decorated officer. She took the uniform code seriously, and really, she knew the crew of the Shenzhou too well. She did their performance reviews. There was no one appropriate, and Commander Burnham was the height of propriety.

Somewhere, in the turmoil of no longer being Commander Burnham, of losing everything, the thing that really grated on her was the thing she hadn’t even had time to lose.

Love was this insult, this constant meme of an idea that seemed to apply to everyone but her. It was another stick to beat herself with, that she was a failure, a traitor, a mutineer, a murderer, and _unlovable_ , as if that was the worst sin of all.

Then, suddenly, there was this new guy, this beautiful, graceful, tragic, handsome man, as alone on this ship as she was, another favourite of their capricious captain, and she’s pulled to him, compelled to spend time with him. She seeks him out, and despite everything, he does the same. They kiss on a planet neither of them should have been on, a perfect moment, a perfect kiss, and she thinks “this might be it”, and then before she chastises herself for jinxing it, sees the look on his face, and knows, this is it, this is what it feels like.

They’re having a date in her quarters, which feels dangerous, even though they had sat down, discussed it like adults, and mutually decided to wait. He was still dealing with the aftermath of torture, after all, and she was dealing with losing her entire identity, everything she had held dear, and they’re both adults in possession of thick and weighty psychiatric files. It’s a good idea to be sure, to wait. They were both bruised deep down in the soul, hurting and sad and yet, there were moments she longed to turn to him and ask him, ask him whether he wanted to just throw all their grown up and mature plans away, drink the bottle of cheap spirits Tilly keeps under her bed labelled ‘courage’ in her stark engineers hand, and just do it?

Instead, they’re sitting on her bed watching a holo like the teens they’re watching navigate young love, neither really paying attention. They’re leaned against the wall, and it's just not good for her back. She’s so tired, so stressed, her shoulders feel like rocks, and she just wants to lie down, but lying down isn’t waiting. She prods at her neck with her fingers, smiling tightly when he looks at her all concerned and handsome in the half light, as the teens misunderstand each other to move the plot along.

“I could...give you a massage?” he says, smiling shyly. “Might be nice. I have warm hands,” he waggles them, “good circulation runs in the Tyler family.”

He’s so sweet, he makes her teeth ache, and she burns with a low-grade fever for him anyway, so instead of being strong and stoic, she trusts her heart, and says yes.

She strips without him asking, down to her underwear, because there’s no way she’s having him rub his hands through her jumpsuit, if this is what she will get, she’s going to feel it.

He asks if she has any cream, and she does, dry skin and dry ship’s air never mix, and then he’s helping her lie down on her bed, sliding his jumpsuit off his shoulders so it hangs around his waist. She catches a glimpse of his bare arms, before he reaches down and presses his hands to the wings of her scapulae, and she groans. His hands are warm and slick, and the bed is soft enough that she sinks slightly under his touch, and it’s so good, such relief.

There’s a pause, and she hears him take an intake of breath, as if he’s about to talk, but then there’s a rustling and he’s taking the rest of his jumpsuit off and then the bed dips, and he’s settling his weight over her calves.

“I need leverage” he whispers, excuses, and he resumes, long presses down the small of her back.

It’s not sexual, it’s not, apart from that it is, because all her feelings for him are sexual down to the core. She wants him so badly, can feel his legs pressed against the outside of hers, feels his thumbs dig into her sacrum, releasing knots she hadn’t realised she was carrying, feels them unspool something else in her chest, that last bit of Commander Burnham who she was holding on to.

She reaches behind herself and undoes her bra, exposing her back for him and it's his turn to groan, and he runs his hands slowly all the way up each side of her spine, then down the sides of her ribcage, the very edges of his fingers pressing against the edge of her breast and it’s the most ridiculous tease, she wants him down to her very _cells_.

He runs his hands down her shoulders, down her arms, and then leans in, and she can feel his beard on her neck as he leans in to kiss her, right where he has worked out she’s most sensitive to him, the place that lights her right up, and that’s when the switch flips for her, no bottled courage needed. She rolls, and he rises enough to allow her to, and then they’re lying there, both topless in their regulation underwear, kissing with intent to break all the rules.

It’s easy, so easy, from then. It’s right, it's exactly what she wants, and she murmurs this to him and he nods, kissing her warm and bright and says the words “yes, me too” and then she engages the privacy lock and thanks Tilly for her constant inappropriate support for insisting, despite Michael’s vehement protestations, that she’s going to work all night on her dissertation in the lab, no pressure, I’ll be gone _all night_.

He feels so good, and she relishes in rubbing her body against his, his hands still warm and slick and still touching her with that firm pressure, down her side, against her hips, dipping his fingers under the hem of her underwear, rubbing against the crease of where her thigh meets her pelvis in this way that is totally sexy, even if it’s a tease, and he kisses down to her breasts, and where his hands are strong and determined, his mouth is gentle and hesitant. He kisses around them gently, worshipful, just a press of lips an inch below where her nipple is tight and eager in the cool atmospherics. He takes his time, until she’s almost vibrating, until she puts her hands in his hair and directs his mouth, and then he sucks hard and it’s so good, why were they waiting, what could be wrong with this?

She can feel him hard between her legs, and she rubs against him, loves the way he stutters and gasps and looks at her with such delight, and she quirks her head, her eyebrow, and then they’re both skinning out of their underwear and laughing and then it’s just a simple slide and he’s right there inside her, thick and so good it takes her breath away.

It’s a simple equation, simple and beautiful, the way they rock together, kissing and pressing together as close as they can get, so easy, not awkward at all. He feels so good, she feels so slick and it’s beautiful, exactly the right amount of friction, his hips pressing against her in just the right way that means that when she wraps her legs around him his pelvis grinds against her clit and it’s just enough pressure to slowly, grindingly, drive her insane, until they’re both sweating and mindless and he’s grunting with every thrust and she’s groaning in counterpoint and then he slams in, hips circling as he’s coming and grinding against her and that’s it, she comes so hard her face hurts, she’s smiling clutching him to her, the whole experience primal and perfect and totally, totally right.

_three._

The other universe is terrifying, even without the strange quality of light and knives glinting from every shadow, everything looks wrong. She gets back into her quarters and is relieved that the only shock waiting for her is him lurking in the light rather than the shadows.

He looks good in everything, but the slick uniform, hard breastplate and the gold accents, they make him look like a statue, and she wants him out of it, wants to get back to her Ash, his generous warmths, the softness of his hair and his heart and his hot hands, hands she dreams about, has deep fantasies about when she’s alone and lonely.

She’s so exhausted though, and she’s glad she doesn’t have to pretend in front of him, and it’s good to have a witness as she undresses herself and puts herself back together, helping him do the same.

The rot of this universe is creeping inside her, she can feel it, as she stands above him and kisses him after he professes his love, and wants him to help her get back her control by giving him some of his.

Maybe its affecting both of them, because its the first time she’d describe the sex between them as fucking. They’re always primal, there’s nothing between them that isn’t all fundamental particles and honest human instinct, but this time she leans into him in a different way, takes her frustrations out on him, puts him so he has to bend to her, tests him and is pleased when he goes, willingly. He worships her, kisses every inch of her, gives her what she needs, goes on his knees for her and eats her out with his hands clasped behind his back, at perfect parade rest, keeps going until it nearly hurts how sensitive and over-stimulated she is, and orders him to strip.

His body is lovely, still, but there’s something in his eyes that stops her melting completely, reverting to her usual self. He lies down and helps steady her as she climbs on him, sinking down onto his cock, still as beautiful and thick and made for her as the first time and every time since, steadying her as she wraps her arms around his head and kisses him, looking down at his beautiful face, as between each of these kisses he swears his love, his gratitude, his eternal adoration, over and over again, until his face crumples and the facade breaks, and then its them, honest again, the stain of this universe finally sloughed away.

_four._

When Michael first came onto the Shenzhou, the frankness of the humans shocked her, the way they talked about love in such casual ways, while also speaking of love as if it was the core driving force of the universe. They flippantly loved things, loved the way someone fell for a joke, loved the chew of a sweet treat from home, loved their kids and their pets and their favourite PADD all in the same sentence, with the same word, over and over again. Love tripped off their lips like saliva. They seemed full of love, but what that love was kept changing, and she could never quite grasp the fullness of it.

She never felt more of an outsider those first few years when this universality of love wasn’t obvious, when it felt like everything the Vulcans had privately thought about humans, that they were imprecise, unfocused, simple beings with simple emotions. Those first few years she felt like an alien from an old film, but there was no way she would ever say “teach me this human emotion called love?”, certainly not with a straight face, and that was the only face she really felt she had back then.

She’d had enough problems with realising that the human concept of sex was more than just the physical act, that it was more like a full play, with stage directions, author’s notes, artistic conventions and director’s interpretations. For all Vulcan society had been difficult, she had always understood it, understood where to look for the different layers, where for humans, life was something that couldn’t be understood without experiencing it, and you couldn’t do that without jumping in face first.

How many years was it before she truly got it? That she understood how one word could contain multitudes, that she loved him, loved him so much, loved him like the crunch of unreplicated apples and as something small and cute hidden in a drawer and as part of her, an organ, perhaps, vital to her survival. Loved him in her small bed, in the other her’s bed, loved him even as he disintegrated before her eyes, loved him as he professed his love for her with his dying breaths, before another took his place and used her Ash’s hands to kill her. How in the months after, after he had apparently been returned to her, after everything, she loved him as much as she was terrified of him, that she could love him and want to be sick whenever she caught a glimpse of his shiny hair in the halls.

It was hard, even when they’ve saved the world, and she knows that this Ash, this one, is good, is strong, isn’t going to hurt her, he’s still not the one that was hers.

He kissed her goodbye, and left, into the arms of another woman, a woman who had violated her original Ash, had broken his beautiful mind before she even knew him, and even though it hurt, it was okay, because she could have been in love with him, could have learned to appreciate him in the way she appreciates pictures of other people’s babies, the way the plomeek soup from the replicator is almost right, things she loves because of their inherent joys are hardwired into her, even if they aren’t entirely right.

_five._

When he came back on board, wearing black and looking like he’s from the other universe but somehow worse, because _they killed her parents and ruined her life and took everyone she loved and brought them back wrong; not her Phillipa; not her Ash_ , it’s the fact that his beard has grown long in a way she doesn’t like that irritates her the most, somehow. Her Ash had a regulation beard, was careful with it, kept it because she liked it. She liked the way it brushed against her thighs, the way it left her chest slightly red when he lay his head on her shoulder in bed, the way it was somehow soft against her face. This Tyler, this man with so many loyalties, so many secrets, his beard seemed swelled by them, who looked at her every chance he got, who could never stop looking, and yet when she looked at him all she could see was the ways he had changed from the imprint in her mind.

His eyes are her Tyler’s, and it hurts to see them, because she didn’t lie, back on Qo’nos, they were his eyes now, like her Tyler still lived in there, somewhere underneath the treachery and hurt and the overgrown beard. It is to her Tyler that she goes and makes her apologies, the day she dies. She isn’t truly sorry, but she isn’t going to her death with guilt on her conscience.

It's his niceness that disarms her, because after all this, he’s right about her, knows her down to her bones and beyond. She knew he was a safe harbour for her to express emotion, to take out her frustrations about an unfair universe, a universe that keeps on fucking her when she never wanted any of this, only wanted to save her brother and do her duty and go home to him, the first him, the him that stroked her back with reverence and love before she knew what that meant.

He wraps her in his arms, and something breaks, something she’d kept sealed away in glass so she could admire it from far away, her love for him, because this is what he would do, he’d try to save her right up until the last.

If kissing him is the last selfish act of Michael Burnham, dead woman walking, then so be it.

They’re due any moment, but it doesn’t matter because the kiss won’t stay a kiss, and she’s got her hands in his hair and then in his seams, pulling them apart so she can get her hands on him properly, his lovely wide shoulders, his strong arms, holding her up as she wraps her legs around him, and it’s kind of like the first time how eager they are to get down to their underwear, even if the bulkhead is 90 degrees from where she is, she feels that if she closed her eyes she could slip back through time to then, the way he kisses her breast, the way they nod at each other, and then the way he slides inside her, perfect, made for her, so good she can’t do anything but hold on and feel the love unfurl inside her once again.

**Author's Note:**

> For strangeallure, who held my hand as I discovered all these Ashburn feels I had locked away for years. I started this fic in November 2017, when it was called 'Michael Burnham is a virgin who can't drive', because I cannot help myself. 
> 
> Title is now the seventh I've nicked from The Jezabels, this time from Time to Dance. When will I stop??
> 
> This was originally five people that Michael Burnham slept with, but then I realised I don't actually care about her sleeping with anyone but Ash Tyler, also by the way, did you remember that Ash Tyler was the most beautiful and tragic man and how it's almost impossible for me not to feel very strongly about him? 
> 
> Come and tell me how much YOU love Ash Tyler over at my [tumblr](http://cicaklah.tumblr.com)


End file.
